Semyon Dezhnev

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Semyon Dezhnev

Semion Ivanovich Dezhnyov (; c. 1605 – 1673) was a Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavs ethnic group, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries.The English language term Russians is used to refer to the citizens of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity ; in Russian language, the demonym Russian is translated as Rossiyanin ....
explorer who in 1648 led the expedition that doubled the known extent of the easternmost promontory

Promontory

Promontory may refer to:*Promontory, a prominent mass of land which overlooks lower lying land or a body of water*Promontory, Utah, the location where the United States first Transcontinental Railroad was completed...
of the Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
n continent and discovered that Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
is not connected to Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
.

Semyon Dezhnev's biographers have concluded that he was born at the very beginning of the 17th century in Veliky Ustyug

Veliky Ustyug

File:Coat of Arms of Velikiy Ustyug .pngVeliky Ustyug is a types of inhabited localities in Russia in Vologda Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Sukhona River and Yug Rivers....
in northern Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
. Like many of the enterprising Russian northmen of the time, he went to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
in search of his fortune, and served in Tobolsk

Tobolsk

Tobolsk is a historic capital of Siberia, now an ordinary town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of rivers Tobol River and Irtysh River....
and Yeniseysk

Yeniseysk

Yeniseysk, also Eniseisk and other variants , is a types of settlements in Russia in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River....
.

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Encyclopedia

Semion Ivanovich Dezhnyov (; c. 1605 – 1673) was a Russian

Russians

Promontory

Eurasia

Asia

Alaska

Veliky Ustyug

Russia

Siberia

Tobolsk

Tobolsk is a historic capital of Siberia, now an ordinary town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of rivers Tobol River and Irtysh River....
and Yeniseysk

Yeniseysk

Yeniseysk, also Eniseisk and other variants , is a types of settlements in Russia in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River....
. Dezhnev became well-known for his experience and bravery.

In 1647 he was approached by Fedot Popov (a fellow northman from Kholmogory

Kholmogory

Kholmogory is a historic types of inhabited localities in Russia and the administrative center of Kholmogorsky District of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia....
), who invited Dezhnev to join the Nizhekolymskaya (Low Kolyma

Kolyma

The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East....
) party and to sail by the sea from Kolyma towards the east in search of the precious "walrus zub (tooth) and fish bones" (walrus tusks and "whalebone" or baleen

Baleen

Baleen or whalebone is the means by which baleen whales feed. These whales do not have teeth, but instead have rows of baleen plates in the upper jaw – flat, flexible plates with frayed edges, arranged in two Parallel rows, looking like combs of thick hair....
). The final destination of the voyage was supposed to be river Anadyr

Anadyr

Anadyr may refer to:*Anadyr , a town and the administrative center of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia*Anadyr River, a river in Russia*Operation Anadyr...
. But the ice conditions on the sea forced the party to abort their mission. That did not stop Dezhnev from trying it again the next year.

In 1648 Dezhnev, Popov, and Fedot Alekseev, another of the chief organizers of the expedition, led a party of about 90-105 men in seven small Arctic-worthy ships (koch

Koch (boat)

The Koch was a special type of small one or two mast wooden sailing ships designed and used in Russia for Arctic Circle voyages in ice conditions of the Arctic seas, popular among the Pomors....
) to the Anadyr River. It took them ten weeks of sailing north to get to the estuary of the Anadyr. The participation of Dezhnev in this leg of the voyage is undocumented. Only the activities of Fedot Alekseev can be traced today. From the estuary Dezhnev went up the river and founded Anadyrskiy ostrog (fort).

The same year Dezhnev sailed along the northern shores of the tip of Asia and discovered what was then called the Anian Strait between Asia and Alaska, thus proving that the Eurasian and the American continents are not connected. He followed the shoreline and doubled the Chukchi Peninsula

Chukchi Peninsula

The Chukchi Peninsula, Chukotski Peninsula or Chukotsk Peninsula , at about 66? N 172? W, is the northeastern extremity of Asia. Its eastern end is at Cape Dezhnev near the village of Uelen....
. In his reports Dezhnev gave the description of this legendary "Tabin-Promontorium", the existence of which was rumored by ancient geographers. Dezhnev also described two islands populated by the Chukchi people ("Ostrova zubatykh") (today known as the Diomede Islands

Diomede Islands

The Diomede Islands , also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands , consist of two rocky, tuya-like islands: the United States island of Little Diomede and the Russian island of Big Diomede , which is also known as Imaqliq, Inaliq, Nunarbuk or Ratmanov Island....
), consisting of Ratmanov Island and Kruzenstern Island, located between Asia and Alaska in what is now known as the Bering Strait

Bering Strait

The Bering Strait is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65? 40' north, slightly south of the polar circle....
. He collected interesting ethnographic data about chukchi people ("zubatiye") who decorated their lower lip with pieces of walrus tusks, stone or bone. The port of arrival of Dezhnev expedition is unknown.

In 1670 Prince Boryatinsky, the governor of Yakutsk

Yakutsk

kutsk is a types of inhabited localities in Russia in the Russian Far East, located about 4? below the Arctic Circle. It is the capital of the Sakha Republic , Russia and a major port on the Lena River....
, entrusted Dezhnev with the mission to Moscow. Dezhnev was to deliver there the "sable treasury" and official documents. It took a year and five months for Dezhnev to successfully accomplish this journey. He was over 60 years old and the old wounds received during his service at the borders of Russia and hard toil undermined his health. After a severe illness, Dezhnev died in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital and the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia of the Russian Federation. It is also the largest European cities and metropolitan areas, with the Moscow metropolitan area ranking among the largest urban areas in the world....
in 1673.

The reports about the results of this expedition were buried in the departmental archives for a long time and only at the end of 19th century, following the petition of the Russian Geographic Society, the easternmost promontory of Eurasia was named Cape Dezhnev

Cape Dezhnev

Cape Dezhnyov or Cape Dezhnev is a Headlands and bays that forms the easternmost point of Eurasia, on the Chukchi Peninsula in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of Russia....
. Today we still have only scanty information about Dezhnev himself.

There is a possibility that part of the Dezhnev expedition discovered the American mainland by reaching Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
, even founding a settlement there. But other Russian expeditions are believed to be better candidates for this.

A minor planet

Minor planet

An asteroid group or minor planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid....
3662 Dezhnev

3662 Dezhnev

3662 Dezhnev is a Main-belt Asteroid discovered on September 08, 1980 by Zhuravleva, L. at Nauchnyj.External links ...
, discovered by Soviet

Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova

Lyudmila Zhuravlyova

Lyudmila Vasil'evna Zhuravleva is a Ukraine astronomer.She works at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory.She also serves as presidentof the Crimean branch of the "Prince Clarissimus Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov Foundation" ....
in 1980 is named after him. A crater

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with larger body....
Dejnev on Mars

MARS

In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm....
is also named after him.

Literature

Salentiny, Fernand: DuMonts Enzyklopädie der Seefahrer und Entdecker. S. 144-145. Monte von Dumont, Köln 2002, ISBN 3-8320-8718-4
Semionov, Youri.: La conquête de la Sibérie du IXe siècle au XIXe siècle. Payot, Paris 1938.
Müller, Gerhard Friedrich: Nachrichten über Völker Sibiriens (1736-1742). hgg. von Chelimskij, Evgenij A. Institut für Finnougristik/Uralistik der Universität Hamburg, Hamburg 2003.